Energy Security and Climate Change: China's New Global Leadership in a Systemic World

This paper analyses the relationship between energy security and climate change in China. It examines the discourses and the policies resulting from each issue, making the distinction between the situations of scarcity of oil and abundance of coal. China, until recently, rejected international climate change treaties perceived as potentially capable of impeding its growth. However, China now follow a deliberate strategy to convert its energy system with state-driven green growth, transforming its current status as one of the biggest emitters of CO2 emissions to one of a clean responsible modern state. This paper concludes on how China is taking the leadership in the field of massive scale deployment and manufacturing of renewable energy technologies, as well as on the concept of energy security in the Chinese context of a nation challenging United States leadership, in a world of greater scarcity of resources largely provoked by its own growth